Tag: Sarah Palin

When Sarah Palin announced that she was not running for the Republican presidential nomination, she said she thought she would be more of an influence from outside the race. This, however, has not proven to be true. Once she dropped out, media interest shifted away from her, and without the media attention that she has been able to garner in the past, she is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Look at the field. Romney is a virtual liberal pretending he’s conservative. Perry keeps faltering. Cain is about to head south. Palin’s main rival, Michelle Bachmann, is losing her former supporters, as they realize that she is in it for herself rather than for the greater cause. So the time ripe for Sarah Palin to come back in and revitalize the conservative movement.

After the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a number of people and certainly the media implied that Sarah Palinâ€™s election map, threatening Giffordsâ€™ district among others, was at least partly to blame, since the map placed gun sight crosshairs over the targeted areas.

After the attempted assassination, the map was hastily removed from Palinâ€™s web site. A spokesman for Palin said they were not gun targets, but surveyorâ€™s marks. This was a lie, of course, since Palin herself said they were gun targets.

During the mid-term elections, Giffords picked up on the symbolism of those crosshairs over her district and said that there are â€œconsequences to that action.â€ The media replayed those remarks many times as part of their coverage of the Giffords shooting. It was as though Giffords had a premonition of what was to happen on January 8, 2011.

Other voices, including the media, blamed the harsh and often violent partisan rhetoric, spewing out of political candidates, especially those of the extreme right.

Palin evidently felt that she was being attacked by the media, and this prompted her to respond in an eight-minute video.

The video opened well. Palin sat in front of the flag and a fireplace and spoke in a manner reminiscent of a State of the Union address by a president. But what came out of her mouth was far from presidential. Rather than rise above partisanship, she chose to elevate it and attacked anyone who might have accused her as though they were the ones guilty of provoking violence. The comparison of her proclaimed innocence under attack as equivalent to the blood libel charge of Jews showed both no sense of proportion and an insensitivity to another ethnic/religious group. Her address was anything but presidential.

A genuine presidential address came later from Obama both in form, since he was the president, and in the substance of the address.

As it turns out, there is no evidence that the map and maybe even the rhetoric had anything to do with the disturbed mind of a mentally ill gunman. Palin would have been far better off to ignore the whole issue than to continue with her vitriolic attacks.

(The actions of Jesse Kelly, the tea party candidate who ran against Giffords in 2010, by taking an M 16 rifle to rallies and brandishing it like a phallus to boost his credentials, are far more likely to set the mood for a disturbed gunman than Palinâ€™s map. What else could that action represent, since gun control was never an issue in that district?)

Has Sarah Palin now lost her chance at running for the presidency? She has not alienated the extreme faction on her side, but this is not enough for her to become a candidate. If she still has presidential ambitions, she must now work harder to convince her party of her viability. She desperately needs to get savvy political advice, listen to it and act on it. And if she can manage to achieve the now more remote candidature and be elected, she has to convince the ones who actually make the difference in elections. These are the voters in the middle, between the parties, the ones who value bipartisanship and compromise and who have a vision of government working together for them and for the common good.

The 2010 mid-term election was the first test of the tea party on a national stage, and the overall result must be encouraging.Â A large part of the swing to the conservatives was engineered through and by the tea party. As a result they will remain a political force in the conservative movement to be reckoned with going into the 2012 presidential race.

In 2010, the main beneficiaries of the tea party movement have been the Republicans in regaining control of the House of Representatives. Now the tea party has demanded its pound of flesh: elected Republicans must keep their campaign promises or face defeat in their next primaries.

In the longer term, it is Sarah Palin who gains from the tea partyâ€™s successes. She has aligned herself very closely with the tea party movement, and this will stand her in good stead when she seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Palin has been unfairly blamed for the failure of John McCainâ€™s presidential bid in 2008. It is true that she put her foot wrong in a number of minor ways, but her selection as running mate revitalized a flagging campaign. And she was not allowed to campaign freely on her own merits.Â Since then, she has shown herself to be a very effective campaigner.

Now with the showing of â€œSara Palinâ€™s Alaskaâ€ on TLC, we are seeing her in a different light. The program is non-political, but it nevertheless works as an effective promotion of Palin, softening her image and filling out the human aspects.

The old Republican guard, if there is still an effective one, may pale at the idea of Palin running, but as it stands at present, she must be considered the front-runner.

As the Republican primary for the Governor of California reaches Election Day, the two main candidates continue to seek the conservative vote by trying to depict themselves as ultra-conservative on issues while trying to paint the other as essentially liberal. The truth is neither candidate is a true conservative. This race serves to illustrate the dilemma many Republicans face to get the support of their own people.

At the other end, there is the problem of broadening support beyond the Right. The easiest way to do this is to take a book from advertisers and misrepresent. Advertisers have long used the idea of female empowerment to sell products to women, with the empowerment being little more than sexism. Similarly, Sarah Palin now calls herself a feminist. But she is not a feminist in the established sense of the word. Her â€œemerging conservative feminist identityâ€ is simply a new set of words to describe women who donâ€™t agree with womenâ€™s rights, who are against the use of contraceptives and who are anti-abortion. The catch phase is nothing more than a lie, designed to get support for a party that consistently votes against womenâ€™s rights.

Feminists (not Palinâ€™s faux feminists) are more intelligent than that to fall for the lie, but as advertisers know, you can fool people some of the time, and if you keep hammering away, you will fool even more. Eventually perhaps, we will reach a 1984 world, where catch phrases have lost their meaning, and we all mechanically respond to the lies that are being fed us.

So Palin thinks that this nation was founded as a Christian nation. She said this piece of fiction in a speech on Friday, April 16.

Sorry, Sarah, you just confirmed what I was saying in the last post, â€œIgnorance is Right,â€ because the United States was not founded as a Christian nation.

The founding fathers were at great pains to make sure that the Constitution established the government as a secular government, even though the founders themselves were at least nominally Christian (except for Thomas Jefferson who was not. He believed God created the world but after that took no further interest in it.)

To be founded as a Christian nation, the religion needs to appear in the founding documents, but the Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of Jesus, or Christianity, or any defined god that we could recognize as Christian. John Adams made it clear that the Government of the United States is NOT founded on the Christian religion.

When Palin quotes Washingtonâ€™s farewell address that extols â€œreligion, faith, morality [as] indispensable supports,â€ no mention is made of the Christian version of religion, nor of the Christian faith, nor of Christian morality.

Palinâ€™s fiction is another example of the ignorance of the far right at work again. Ironically, she told the women in attendance at her speech that they should not listen to critics who would make them feel that their movement is “all a low-cost brand of ignorance.” But what she was asking them to swallow was exactly that â€“ ignorance of the lowest kind!

As we saw during the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin, given even half an opportunity, helps herself. Though the McCain campaign worked hard to keep her in check, she was always on the verge of â€œgoing rogue.â€

She also helped herself in another way. When the campaign wanted her to improve her image (i.e. her appearance), she went on an enviable shopping spree, spending over $150,000 of Republican campaign funds on herself and on her daughter. Not bad! And she wanted to keep what was tangible after the elections!

When she addressed a tea party convention in February this year, she gave them exactly what they wanted, that is, unrelenting attacks on Obama;Â she presented herself as someone sympathetic to their â€œcauseâ€ (i.e. their anger) and a potential leader of the movement. She still charged them $100,000 for the privilege. There were complaints from many of the tea partyists. She fudged on the money, saying to trust her that it will go to a good cause. No doubt it will: Sarah Palin.

Recently at the Oscars Gift Suite, she and her entourage helped themselves to the freebies there. â€œThey were like locusts,â€ it was reported. â€œThey practically cleaned out the suite.â€ (That part may have been somewhat exaggerated.) Security would not allow any photos, which were expected by the companies donating items to use for product promotion. These items were then supposed to be donated back for auction (to support Red Cross efforts in Haiti and Chile), but Palin â€œdid not give up any of of her swag.â€ (E! Online)

It seems that with Sarah Palin, there is no clear line between what is private and what is public. The same pattern seems to have existed in her public positions in Alaska, and it will no doubt continue wherever she finds herself. Perhaps she is also helping herself at Fox News. This trait is not necessarily a bad one. All the great dictators made no distinction in this respect. Their philosophy was, What was good for them was good for the nation.

Carrie Prejean, as a conservative Christian Miss California, got her first nationwide publicity when, in answer to a Miss USA pageant question, she said that she was opposed to gay marriage. She was criticized for her answer, but what did the interviewer expect? Should she have lied? It was a stupid question by an idiot who had his own agenda. She was entitled to express her belief and she should be admired for daring to say it. Her later preparedness to switch off Larry King, during an unacceptable line of questioning, shows that she still has spunk.

The publicity from the gay marriage answer, however, led to other revelations, and she lost her the Miss California title. The subsequent happenings made her look like an airhead, especially when she proclaimed that Sarah Palin, the primo political airhead, was her idol. Some commentators suggested a joke Palin/Prejean presidential ticket for 2012!

First, it turns out that she had breast implants. Prejean defended these by saying that there was nothing un-Christian in getting them. â€œI don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn’t get breast implants.â€ Then she had posed for half nude photographs, which she blamed on the wind blowing her top open. She did not say it, but thereâ€™s nothing in the Bible that says you shouldnâ€™t pose for nude photographs. Then a solo sex video surfaced. Then many more. Thereâ€™s nothing in the Bible that says you shouldnâ€™t make masturbation videos. Now she has had a firm offer for a porn movie. Carrie, thereâ€™s nothing in the Bible that says â€¦

I shouldnâ€™t make fun of her conservative Christian rationalizations, since the fabric of her world may be crashing around her, or perhaps those fifteen minutes of fame are being effectively extended. Maybe her Christianity will allow her to venture into the seedier world into which she seems to be heading. If so, I feel kind of sorry for her.

Conservative Christians are very good at rationalizing. In Prejeanâ€™s case, what may be embarrassing to her, is no more than harmless amusement to the rest of us. Where it is not harmless, is when it appears in the people to whom we may someday entrust society and government. The ultra-right wing of the Republican Party is trying to purge the moderates of the party, and, together with the â€œscreamersâ€ on radio and Fox News, it defines itself solidly as Christian.

But what kind of Christianity is this?

It is certainly not the caring, charitable kind of Christianity we associate with Jesus, when its main characteristic is denial, when it takes rather than gives, when it says no to need and care. It is a selfish Christianity without moral depth and without charity. Christianity with implants!

It is okay to lie and deceive, both openly and through manipulation. We can divorce our wives, even as they are confined to bed with cancer. Adultery is fine, because our colleagues will forgive us (which is just about as good as Godâ€™s forgiveness.) We can send prurient emails to boy pages we lust for. Being â€œuncleanâ€ (Matthew 16:10) is now perfectly fine and Christian.

Additionally, we can now place money above morality. We can bow to special interest groups that line our back pockets with green and then we go and do their bidding, even if it flies against national and humane interests. We operate as back pocket gophers and persuade ourselves that this is in everyoneâ€™s best interests. Yes, our Christian implants say; yes, yes, we can worship both God and money (Matthew 6:24).

The two references I gave are to actual words of Jesus. The rest of the Bible, both old and new, has many prohibitions that are either ignored or simply flouted by these professed Christians. In fairness, I should point out, though, that when it comes to health care, the biggest back pocket gopher seems to be Joe Lieberman, the senator from Connecticut, who is neither Republican nor Christian, but the political conservative Christians are not far behind.

Prejean defended her implants by saying that there was nothing in the Bible against them. But the actions of the super-conservative Christian Republicans fly directly in the face of what is proscribed in the Bible. Clearly, they must have implants that allow them to put on this front.